


Joy in the Dark

by LazyWriterGirl



Series: In Any Scenario - Korrasami Month 2016 [4]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Alternate Universe - kingdoms, Assassin!Asami, Bodyguard and Princess Dynamic, F/F, Fantasy Politics, Hiroshi is a Broken Man, Korrasami Month 2016, Princess!Korra, Prompt: Assassin, Pulled Out a Ton of Tropes, Unalaq is Still An Asshole
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-12
Updated: 2016-11-12
Packaged: 2018-08-30 14:41:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8537053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LazyWriterGirl/pseuds/LazyWriterGirl
Summary: It is two years into her ruse when Asami realizes that she has made a critical mistake. She has fallen in love with Korra—Princess Korra, Princess Korra of the Southlands, whom she has sworn to kill. And Korra, if the kiss that she presses to Asami’s lips in the stables one afternoon is any indication, has fallen in love with Asami as well.Prompt 4 for Korrasami Month 2016: Assassin!Asami





	

**Author's Note:**

> For once, I'll preface this by saying that I almost didn't post for this prompt, but the story was written and it would be a shame not to share. Times being what they are, I apologize in advance if the premise upsets anybody, though I sincerely hope it won't. And know, whether you live in the US or anywhere else, that I will always try to be here for each and every one of you should you need somebody. 
> 
> Even if all you need is one more person on the internet, here or on Tumblr or wherever else, who will send you one of those ugly internet hearts ( <3 ) and remind you that you are loved.

Hers is a grim business indeed, but even death may come with the promise of joy.

 

 

 

Her client’s gold rests heavily in its sack, and she is careful to move as slowly as she can through the darkened streets to avoid attracting other lowlifes with the sound of coin. Hers is a home that does not see much light once the sun dies away behind the mountains. She turns her head from side to side before she exits the cover of the alley, eyes scanning the darkness for kingdom guards before she slips out into the street.

Not even the sight of the blood on her hands is enough to temp down the joy of the moment, and the thrill of returning to the person for whom she has taken on such a twisted life.

The home to which she soon returns is nothing particularly special—not much more than a hovel almost exactly similar to the ones which line this entire area of the city. It is not the structure that matters, but the man who waits for her within. She wipes the worst of the blood away on a rag just underneath the hut’s one window; no need to upset him. Her hands are no longer slick, but still sticky; still enough to remind her of what she has done.

The second that the door closes behind her she sees him and the smile on his face—no matter how vacant it is—fills her with more joy than the knowledge that the money she’s earned tonight will be enough to see them through the winter in clothes, food, and firewood.

 

“Asami.”

 

“Hello, Dad,” she says, kneeling down before Hiroshi Sato’s chair by the fireplace. The sack of gold comes to rest at her side, momentarily forgotten. “Have you eaten?”

“Eat?” She pushes back the lank hair from his eyes, taking in the sallow gauntness of his cheeks. It is a miracle that he has not caught a sickness. She hopes that his luck will last. “I…no, not yet..”

“Okay. Well, I’m going to go get dressed and then I’ll see what we can do for dinner.”

“Okay. Missed you.” Her father pats her hand affectionately, his eyes focusing just a little more on her face after she rises. There’s something in his voice, a specific kind of sound that he only makes when the memories become too much to stand but he’s fighting them anyway; and Asami—covered in blood and regret and self-contempt—bends down to kiss his forehead. Some days he doesn’t recognize her at all anymore, so this is nice while it lasts. She hopes it will last until her next job comes in—a few days, at most.

Picking up the sack of gold from where she had set it down, Asami smiles. “I missed you too, Dad.”

She’s not made it three steps to her room when his voice, peaking in a way that makes him sound nothing like the proud man he was, asks, “Do you know when your mother will be home, honey?”

“…No Dad. She didn’t say.”

 

Alone in her room minutes later, when she has stripped the bloodied clothes from her body and washed the smell of death from her skin, Asami counts out every piece of gold in the sack and cries.

 

 

 

***

 

 

 

It takes only one year for Asami to realize that she must make a name for herself in the dark world she relies upon in order for her new profession to suitably act as her livelihood. One year of assassinating petty merchants and various degenerates with little extra coin in an endless attempt to keep herself and her father safe.

 

And then, somehow, _he_ finds her; the founder of the Assassin’s Guild himself.

 

Brother Zaheer tells her that she is destined to do far greater things, and that she should learn to feel comfortable operating outside of the Republic. He has a point. Although the bounties on their heads have long expired and the new royal family living on high does not care a whit for their existence, Asami still cannot help but feel that she and her father are running, running, always running as they move from hovel to hovel in the seedy alleys that have yet to change in the face of yet another royal family’s promises.

They will not change anything; not for the common people, and not for the ranks of desperate men and women who operate in Asami’s line of work, or worse—she thanks Raava that she has skills that have saved her from having to do lower than this.

Asami takes matters into her own hands, as she has done before. She seeks out Brother Zaheer the next time she and her father’s place of residence moves within reach of the Assassin’s Guild, and she asks him to provide her with a contract worthy of somebody of her skill.

 

He does not disappoint her.

 

Within days she and her father have packed their scattered belongings and moved again, out of the heart of the Republic. The target is an obscenely wealthy man—a blackmailer and a con—and Asami’s dagger across the thick veins in his neck earns herself and her father room and board in a shabby, but comfortable boarding house. Still, the money is not nearly enough.

Asami becomes a member of the Assassin’s Guild officially, and things begin, slowly, to look up. Instead of petty merchants, she now kills petty nobles; instead of poor degenerates she is now contacted by richer ones. She has been in the business of killing for four years now, and at seventeen, she is already respected amongst her peers.

Brother Zaheer offers her even more high-profile contracts than before, and though she hates this life, it is altogether too easy to comply. The reward is always enough, even if she comes face to face with old clients, cutting them down in favour of the new.

She does not owe loyalty to anyone but her father and the Assassin’s Guild, as Brother Zaheer so calmly reminds her.

 

It appears as if this will be her lot in life forever, until the king of the North—though she does not recognize him as such until after the fact—comes knocking at the Guild’s doors and asks for her. The assignment he offers her is one she would not pass up for anything, and Brother Zaheer looks on almost proudly as she takes the oath signifying that she will do what must be done for her client’s satisfaction.

 

Her father is placed in a safe home on the outskirts of the Republic, and Asami has put very specific instructions for his care down in writing. As of now, she has been warned that the assignment could take anywhere between two to four years to complete, but the arrangement should still prove beneficial.

It’s more complicated than anything she’s ever had to do before, the client having laid out a very elaborate plan for her to follow. She is almost afraid to go through with this, but she has given her oath as an assassin of the Guild—even if she will not be acting as an assassin until the king of the North gives his signal—but the reward should she succeed…

She wipes the hesitancy from her mind, replacing it with certainty: the reward _when_ she succeeds will be enough for her to leave this nasty business behind for good—Brother Zaheer has already agreed that she may buy herself out of her membership. Even with that in mind, what remains will be enough for her to build a small laboratory and a decent home that doesn’t smell like rat droppings and sewage. Enough for her to begin down the path of rebuilding the life her father had worked so hard to give her; the life that the royalty of the Republic had stolen from them on the night her mother was killed.

_The king of the South loves his daughter above all else. Your assignment, assassin, when I provide you with the signal, is to kill Princess Korra the Brave of the Southlands._

***

 

 

 

Princess Korra the Brave is strange, decidedly so. She is a princess, yes, heiress to a loyal nation, but she acts more like a warrior than anything else. More like a prince than a princess. After watching the girl fidget and jump around during the elimination bouts, Asami honestly wonders why the king of the South would even think that his daughter has need of a bodyguard. She’s feisty and seems to be fairly quick on her feet, and in all honesty Asami had been expecting a child and not a young woman only one summer younger than her.

As she stands in a lineup with five or six other women, waiting for the king to pass his judgement, she thinks that maybe she can understand. The fear he has in concerns to the loyalty of his own soldiers is clear, and the reason for why he has chosen to take on a bodyguard from outside of the Southlands. It is his love for his family that has inspired the king to take an unknown warrior into his house. Just as it her love for her family that has driven her to lie in wait for the day when she takes this man’s precious daughter away from him forever.

“Guard Asami,” says King Tonraq, and his voice is deep and heavy; had she not sworn to kill his daughter at some point in the next four years she would think it reassuring—even though it is laced with respect for the false credentials provided for her by the Guild. “Of all the candidates who have stepped forward to claim the title of my daughter’s bodyguard, only you have shown that you can fulfill this role to my contentment. Be welcome.”

She bows, the movement familiar even after all these years, and thanks the king of the South.

The first thing that Princess Korra the Brave says to her new bodyguard is, “I don’t really need protection, so let’s try just being friends instead.”

 

Asami cannot honestly say that she remembers what having a friend feels like…or even if she’s ever had any friends at all.

 

***

 

Princess Korra is a handful, and at times Asami truly does feel as if she is watching over a child and not a young woman of seven-and-ten years. The princess is brash and rambunctious and fiery and asks so many questions about the world beyond the South that Asami has to constantly remind herself that she is merely playing a game.

The game of being a princess’ bodyguard and friend; a game of lies that will end in Korra dead by her hand, blood pooling around her body as Asami leaves with the reward she has been promised. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t difficult to ignore the strange feeling she gets when the princess’ questions turn into amusing conversations that leave her wondering why she’d never bothered making friends more as a child.

 

There’s just something about Korra that makes it so that Asami can never quite say no.

 

***

 

She doesn’t know why she’d given the king of the South her true date of birth, doesn’t even think to question why he’d ask even though he only nods upon hearing her answer.

It isn’t until Korra appears in her doorway early in the morning with a poorly-baked cake on a plate in her hands that Asami realizes that the king probably hadn’t been asking for his own purposes.

“What is this?” she asks, too asleep to piece anything together other than that it must really be something about being born in the South that makes it possible for Princess Korra to run around in such cold temperature wearing little more than a nightgown and bare feet.

“A celebratory cake, for your birthday! I didn’t want to wake anybody so I had to make it myself. It probably tastes awful but…”

“It’s fine, milady,” she says, the deferent tone in her voice easy enough to fake. It has been some number of months since her entry into the ranks of the palace staff, and deference is easy to learn. “I am grateful for the gift.”

“Oh!” The princess’ entire face seems to glow at the words for a reason that Asami cannot comprehend, but it is a lovely sight—Asami makes a note to punish herself for such a thought later. “T-this…it’s nothing. Glad you like it!”

Korra rushes in, practically drops the cake on Asami’s face, and rushes out. She’s right—Asami finds out as soon as she’s taken her first bite—it tastes awful, but Asami doesn’t complain, licking every last crumb from the tines of her fork; this is the first time she has celebrated her birthday in eleven years.

 

The night before the princess’ birthday only a few months later, Asami stays up to make a cake. She doesn’t know why she does, but the way that Korra smiles after she’s taken the first bite makes her feel…strangely good.

 

***

 

It is two years into her ruse when Asami realizes that she has made a critical mistake. She has fallen in love with Korra—Princess Korra, Princess Korra of the Southlands, whom she has sworn to kill. And Korra, if the kiss that she presses to Asami’s lips in the stables one afternoon is any indication, has fallen in love with Asami as well.

 

That night, for the first time since entering King Tonraq’s house, Asami cries for herself and what has become of her.

 

***

 

Two years later, King Tonraq is severely wounded out on the tundra—an incident wherein all the details remain unknown or unproven—and though she worries for her father, Princess Korra agrees to rule as de facto head of the South. The ball that follows her announcement is grand, and Asami, ever the dutiful bodyguard—and secret lover—follows behind her princess, one hand always resting on the hilt of her sword.

When the dancing begins, she is the first person to whom Korra offers her hand, and she is powerless to accept.

The Korra of four years ago would not have been able to dance this well, but the Korra of now must be, at least on the outside, every bit the part of young queen; and so Asami helps her, modifying the steps of the dance to best allow Korra to shine. She only makes a misstep once, when her eyes lock onto those of the king of the North.

He beckons for her to follow him, and as soon as she can, she asks for Korra’s pardon.

The king of the North looks just as gaunt as he had in the dim lighting at the Assassin’s Guild, the smile on his face no less cruel. “I see you have ingratiated yourself with my niece, assassin.”

“Asami,” she says, more forcefully than she’d meant to. “Unless you want to expose four years of work, I would advise you, milord, to take caution and use only the name by which I am known here. And I have only done what you asked…I have earned the princess’ trust.”

King Unalaq quirks an eyebrow at her, amusement written across the thin sneer that spreads over his lips when he says, “I had thought you’d forgotten your end of the bargain, Asami.”

“Never,” she says, even though she knows in her heart that she has lost many a night thinking of how to get out of this situation. Thinking of how to save her father, save herself, and—perhaps most importantly of all—save Korra.

“Well that’s very good then.” King Unalaq has already stepped past her when she hears him add, in a whisper so sharp it almost feels lethal as it pierces her ears, “Your father’s been asking after you…I would hate to disappoint him, wouldn’t you?”

The morning after the ball, when the royal family of the Northlands has taken their leave, Asami finds a note just next to her head on the pillow. _You have three days._ She does not know if it is the note itself or the idea of how it came to right beside her that makes her shiver; if it is the cold in the air or the cold that has crept in and settled itself in the spaces around her heart.

 

She does not know if the cause is something else entirely, but the first thing she does once she has dressed herself is to find Korra and press her against the nearest wall, praying to a goddess she has never seen that the princess will not taste the saltwater that runs the length of her cheeks and stains her lips.

 

 

***

 

 

The dagger is heavy in her hand, its handle slick with sweat; but this will be her only chance. She has spent far too long in this make-believe world where she is a guard and Korra is just another person to be guarded. Just another princess in need of a brave knight. She should have been nothing more than just one more princess to _kill_ , and would have been so had Asami been more careful, had Asami kept her emotions in check and been wise enough never to let her guard down even once in the last four years.

 

Now, as she stands beside Korra’s sleeping form, half-dressed and still flushed from the activities of only an hour earlier, she tries her best to see Korra as just one more princess. One more symbol of the imbalances of power that have brought the common people to such hardship. One more reason why she answered the call the first time the man from the Assassin’s Guild—Brother Zaheer—came knocking at her door. She remembers herself, a little girl, standing over the body of her mother as the very life drained from it. She remembers her father’s anguish, remembers how his brilliance slowly dimmed, and how he eventually lost himself to his grief.

She remembers the disgust on the face of the farmer’s widow who’d agreed to take her father in until her return, and she wonders if he is yet living, if the gold she gave to the woman has served its intended purpose and not been used merely to line a poor stranger’s pockets.

The world is so dark, so full of weak humans such as herself, that she doubts it.

Korra stirs, and after one long, awful minute has passed she rights herself and looks up at Asami with eyes unafraid. Asami is startled. Even naked and covered only in a sheet, the young woman before her is every inch the brave princess of the South. Asami is ashamed. In the four years that she has stood beside Korra, she has never once felt so disarmed by the other woman. She cannot understand it, why it is here, now, in this space of time that she is suspended in motion by a simple glance. Korra is an enemy of the common people. She must be.

 

If Asami is to finish this mission, that is all that Korra can be.

 

“So it was you, after all,” says Korra, slowly, with a deliberate pace to her words that Asami has seldom heard her use. “For a while now I’ve thought that the assassin my father believed to have been sent for me could have been you. He was surprised to hear it, but he allowed me to act on my own. All I asked of him was for his discretion.”

“You could have saved yourself,” Asami says, breaking yet one more rule for the princess at her feet—conversing with the target in their last moments. “Why would you just allow this to happen?” _Why would you allow me to…_ the question is killed quickly by her saner thoughts; there’s no point in asking that now. “Why would your father allow you to throw your life away?”

Korra smiles but it is devoid of warmth; devoid of the good humour that radiates from her usual cheeky grin—the one that Asami remembers having to warn her against using so frequently, as it is entirely unbecoming for the princess of the South to smile like that. Now Korra wears a princess’ smile, and it is foreign on her face. She doesn’t look like herself even though Asami can pick out the familiar features, the beloved eyes, the hair that was never quite right for somebody of Korra’s status.

 

Perhaps this will make it easier, if Asami cannot recognize her anymore.

 

“My father…trusts my judgement. He always has. I had hopes that you would come to see things differently, or that I had been mistaken,” Korra says simply, and Asami’s mind revolts. The princess of the South is still so very much a child in some aspects; so unaware of the darkness that so often taints once-innocent souls, so trusting in the decency of humanity. “But when you were out there, speaking with my uncle…well, I think that I knew for sure, then.” Or perhaps Korra is not as naïve as she has thought. Perhaps Korra is not the young woman Asami always believed her to be.

 

Her mind says that it will be easier to finish what has taken four years for her to achieve if that is the case, but she knows that her mind is a liar.

 

Korra’s eyes say that she is resigned to her death, but they say something more, something that Asami cannot acknowledge. Must not acknowledge, because if she does she is not certain she will be able to kill the woman who has not moved from the bed. Asami’s eyes catch the rise and fall of Korra’s chest, tracing the movement of the heart beating underneath the silk of the blanket and Korra’s warm, soft skin, and Asami knows where to strike to make this as quick and as painless as possible.

 

“I am…so very sorry.” Her arm rises.

 

Korra’s eyes close. “Do what you must.” This maturity is new, and it is a shame that it will be so short-lived.

 

“I…”

 

“I love you, Asami.” The words that were meant to follow never come, but she hears them all the same. _In spite of this. No matter what._

 

Asami’s hand does not shake first; it is her will that crumbles at the sight of Korra simply sitting there, waiting for death with a quiet patience that she has only recently begun to show is in her possession.

 

“I cannot kill you, Korra.”

 

The would-be assassin falls to her knees, ashamed because she cannot do what she has been sent to do, what she has done to so many others. After all these years, she has grown attached. She has fallen in _love,_ and fallen in such a way that nothing could challenge the feeling, could make her question whether or not it is real _._

 

When the sun rises fully her time will be up, and the king of the North will know that she has failed. He will seek to punish her. The Assassin’s Guild will not allow her a second chance.

 

The dagger is raised, its target now changed, and Asami hopes for the first time that her father is dead, that he has already been granted the rest that she must now deliver unto herself. In a way, it is ironic, that after all the blood she has spilled, it will be her own life that ends the cycle of death she has wrought upon the world.

 

A hand grasps hers, soft, but firm. Strong. Alive.

“I cannot watch you kill yourself.”

 

Korra stands before her and Asami can just make out the woman’s soft smile behind the blur of tears that has overcome her eyes. The dagger is lifted from her grip with little reluctance, and tossed aside into a dark corner of the room as Korra kneels down, down into Asami’s limp arms. The princess’ body is warm in spite of the chill of the room, and Asami grasps as tightly as she can to the one person in the world that makes her feel that she too, can be good again.

“I tried to kill you,” she says. It sounds odd coming from her mouth; a statement and an apology and a question all at the same time.

Korra hums into her shoulder.”But you didn’t.” She wants to argue that that isn’t the point, that there is a _principle_ behind these things that even two women in love cannot ignore, but when Korra pulls away only slightly and looks at her with bright, unflinching eyes, Asami falls silent. “What do we do now?”

Asami’s mind is racing. She does not know where to begin. There are only some two or three hours before daybreak. “I don’t know, Korra…my father…I will face whatever King Unalaq sends my way, but my father—

“Will be here by tonight, brought in safely by a contingent of my father’s guards.”

“…How?” Nothing in Korra’s face says that this is an untruth, but how can it be true?

“I did say that I had hopes you would come to see things differently, did I not?” Korra smiles. “And my father did, too. He likes you, you know.” Asami is embarrassed at the thought, for some reason. “Now come, he will want to know what we can do now. Allow me a moment to dress.”

 

And Asami, she who has ended countless lives and is a woman feared throughout the Republic, sits upon the floor of the South Palace and waits—she feels…lighter, somehow.

 

 

***

 

 

“You have lied and plotted against my daughter and by extension my kingdom as a whole. What you have done would be punishable by the highest laws of my lands,” says King Tonraq, and Asami is prepared to be sentenced to death. What she is not prepared for is the boom of his laugh and the warrior’s fierceness in his smile when he says, “And yet you stand before me now with your head low and your knees bent, and your eyes do not lie in the love that cannot hide. That is why I have decided your punishment, and shall announce it here and now. To pay for crimes perpetrated against my kingdom and my daughter, you will promise to marry her once this war with the North has settled.”

She does not bother to tell him that that is the kind of proposition only a mad king would find reasonable. Something tells her that he would only laugh and agree. Instead she manages to stammer out a confused “I—of course, milord.”

“Very good. I look forward to having you tested in the ways of our people,” he says, and Asami blanches. What she knows of the wedding customs of the Southlands is only enough to know that it will be far more difficult than any mission, any assignment that she has ever been asked to carry out. “For now, however, we must discuss the matter of my brother in the North. It would appear that he has been acting alone, with the aid of the Assassin’s Guild.”

“That is correct, milord,” Asami says.

“I do not wish to cause our brothers and sisters of the Northlands undue upset, but Unalaq…must be removed from power. Preferably without the loss of other lives.” Tonraq’s eyes hold an almost apologetic cast when he looks at her next, and Asami knows where he is going in his thoughts even before he asks what she thinks they can do.

“I am an assassin of the Guild, milord…and should you be willing, just this once, to pay them their fees, I would happily oblige to a change in contract. The matter may be settled after the fact.”

“And I know that my cousins have been waiting for the chance to wrest control from their father…this would be the perfect opportunity,” adds Korra. Asami has to hide a smile at the surprised look that flits across King Tonraq’s strong features. It would appear that the prince and princess of the North are just as crafty as their father—though hopefully in such a way that Asami will never have to see their name on an assassination order.

“Just give me the order, milord, and I shall do what you wish with concerns to the king of the North.”

“Are you sure?” She notes that he seems pained, as if he wants her to deny that she is ready. But she is. It is a dark world, and she does not want to kill anymore…but if this is the only way to do it, if this is the only way to keep Korra safe…then she will do whatever she must.

“Such has always been the custom of the Guild. Brother Zaheer will not object.”

King Tonraq’s weary smile tells her all that she needs to know, and Korra rushes down from her place on the dais to press a kiss to Asami’s lips. “Be safe.”

“I will be.”

King Tonraq echoes his daughter’s sentiment, and reminds her once again that he does not wish to hear of any more than one casualty. A challenge for any assassin—though Asami, confident that she has not yet lost her talents, obliges with little hesitation. Superfluous death is unnecessary in her profession.

At King Tonraq’s request she waits until her father joins them in the halls of the South Palace, and then she departs. Should all be well, she will return have returned to Korra’s side in two weeks. She does not wish to kill any longer, but this final mission will win her freedom.

 

 

 

Hers is a grim business indeed, but even death may come with the promise of joy.

 

 


End file.
